News Release

October 30, 2003

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U.S. National Security Strategy Should Focus on the Homeland and Exit Iraq Promptly
Why America must adopt a less interventionist foreign policy

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. national security strategy promulgated by President Bush in 2002, based on the premise that the best and only way to ensure America's security is by forcibly creating a better and safer world, is actually undermining security and is breeding vehement anti-American sentiment that could spark more terrorist attacks, a new Cato Institute study argues.

Instead of meddling in other countries, the United States would be better off focusing on protecting the American homeland against future terrorist attacks, Director of Defense Policy Studies Charles V. Peņa argues in "Bush's National Security Strategy Is a Misnomer."

"U.S. national security strategy should not aim to make the world a better place; instead, it should be focused more narrowly on protecting the United States itself -- the country, the population, and the liberties that underlie the American way of life," Peņa writes.

"The litmus test is not whether a country meets U.S.-imposed criteria of democratic government but whether it has hostile intentions and real military capability to directly threaten the United States," Peņa adds. "However grand and noble the cause of spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world may be, the reality is that it has little to do with protecting America against more terrorist attacks from al Qaeda -- the one real threat we face."

While the United States must strive to dismantle the al Qaeda terrorist network, it must also take pains to avoid making new terrorist enemies or fueling anti-American hatred. Peņa recommends, among the steps, a withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq as soon as possible, developing a hands-off approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ending support for corrupt and authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

"A much more modest and detached U.S. involvement would reduce the likelihood that radical Islamists would be motivated to attack the United States, which should be the primary concern of U.S. national security policy," Peņa writes.